Programs - Round Table

Lev Roitman:

More recently, in abundant Germany, the ruling coalition changed according to the results of the general parliamentary elections. The Germans are unhappy with their economic situation. I imagine your reaction: we would be your, that is, German concerns. Not so long ago, the government also changed in the relatively prosperous Czech Republic. And the Czechs were unhappy with the government of Vaclav Claus, although it led the country to the entrance to the European Union, where the poor, by the way, did not allow. At the entrance to the European Union in a leading six, at the same time, the same Czechs and Estonians, who are also unhappy with their position. All these dissatisfied still succeeds. Add here the Hungarians, Poles, as well as Lithuanians and Latvians. Other dissatisfied people get almost nothing or very little. Why? This will be reflected in: Russian writer Georgy Vladimir; Ukrainian political analyst Vladimir Malinkovich and expert in the Czech Republic Efim Fishtein.

In some countries, post -communist transformations are encouraged, in others they are thrown into despondency, if we are talking about the predominant well -being of the population. Why is this happening or happened? Vladimir Dmitrievich Malenkovich, Kyiv, you will think for the first, I ask you.

Vladimir Malinkovich:

It seems to me that in our countries, post -Soviet countries, and above all, in Russia, Ukraine and Belarusia, the situation is significantly different from the situation in the countries of the so -called eastern (now they call themselves central) Europe. I see some very important reasons for our distinction, and the first such reason, in my opinion, is the Byzantism of our countries, that is, the lifestyle that is associated with us to belong to Byzantine traditions, their orientation towards the theocratic state, in essence, on the autocratic and theocratic state, where ideology and political power have always been in the same hands. It was under the tsarist autocracy, it was, in fact, under the Soviet regime. While the countries of Eastern Europe always belonged to Europe, belonged to a completely different system of values, where the division of powers into secular and spiritual dominated for a long time. This is a very significant factor. And, in addition, this factor contributed to the formation of an empire in the style of the Third Rome, this empire in the style of the Third Rome, it separated us from Europe, prevented us from conducting European transformations. During, say, on the 17th, 18th, 19th centuries, we, in fact, had neither the Renaissance nor the Reformation, all this cut off from Europe and created a very serious specificity-the specifics where there was no civil society, where everyone considered himself and still considers the slave to the authorities from above: either from God, or from some total total ideology. This is the first reason. The second reason is that the countries of Eastern Europe appeared in the communist camp, so to speak, by conquering a lot later, and there was always a better regime than ours. Here, say, in Poland, even private ownership in agriculture was preserved enough in significant quantities, only 20% of all the property of Poland - it was private property, and so on. The following is the autonomy of these markets. These were states very dependent on the Soviet Union, but still autonomous. And we have a single market, and this single market broke up with the collapse of the USSR. Further, we had very radical reforms that did not take into account our specifics. This is the liberalization of Gaidar, which, in my opinion, led to the collapse of the economy throughout the post -Soviet space. And finally, in my opinion, a very important factor is that we have an incredibly large level of development of the military -industrial complex.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Vladimir Dmitrievich, Kyiv. And now to the writer Georgy Vladimov, Georgy Nikolaevich, you are a line.

Georgy Vladimov:

I think that in Russia an incredible corruption should still be mentioned, which has roots that are closer than say, the history of Byzantium. Communist power, she contacted, even when there was no power, she contacted the criminals at the time when the Lenin Party was preparing a revolution. Then these criminals, these thieves penetrated the authorities, primarily into repressive institutions, such as the Cheka, where they were used to strengthen terror, for mercilessness. Sometimes she, this power, took some measures against the thieves, but this can now be considered as a showdown: just some criminals climbed into the Cheka, others did not climb, and armed struggle was going on between them. Then we can say that that these thieves were used against political in the camps, against the 58th article. And little by little and the government itself was imbued with this thieves morality and a thieves spirit. In the reign of Brezhnev, it was simply clear: he himself was like that, and allowed others. At this time, our reformers, skill, looked with envy, licking at how unremarkable individuals grab everything that the hand captured, and when it became possible, when shock therapy was declared, when it became a reality, and moreover, Russia began, blurring our life, as it was said in the book of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, “Russia in the collapse”. So I see where is the reason for this position that we can’t do it. A long-standing European tradition, it somehow protected from such a plunder, there, others had all this in a tougher framework. In Russia, unfortunately, such a tradition has not been preserved, and was not preserved initially and precisely due to the fault of the communist power itself.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Georgy Nikolaevich. Efim Fishtein, the same questions to you.

Efim Fishtein:

When evaluating the socio-political situation of countries, I would not take for the main or even for one of the most important indicators such a phenomenon as a change of government, say, even as a change in public moods in one direction or another. Since we know that in very developed countries, public moods are quite critical, and governments are changing with depressing regularity. Why? Because, say, a change of government has occurred in the same Czech Republic, however, if we look at the mandates that this or that party receives, then we paradoxically turn out that the right parties that previously constituted the Government of Vaclav Claus won the latest elections, however, the Social-Democratic government, however, is the government of the minority. And the current autumn Senate elections showed that public sentiments have moved even more to the right, and the government is still the same social democratic. That is, these are not central indicators. I think that you should still turn to more ontological, that is, deeply losing indicators, such as the country's tradition, mentality, presence or absence of the Byzantine tradition, which was indicated by Vladimir Malinkovich. I think that this will still be more precise than orientation to some small shifts back and forth. And even the economic situation, say, I would not evaluate one indicator such as a gross national product if it is correlated with the level of, say, the 89th year, when the counting of economic development is carried out from post-communist countries. Recently, just the other day, the European Bank issued a report on the state of the post -communist world, and in this report we read a curious statement: "Countries that have carried out balanced privatization and liberalization in parallel with deep institutional reform are more stable and show great resistance to global pressure from the global crisis." It turns out that judging by the fact that the crisis of the world was reflected in Russia, its economic condition, was reflected especially painfully, then, apparently, there is more superficial privatization and liberalization than deep ones. After all, the same Poland, the Czech Republic or Hungary, almost did not experience the consequences of the global crisis on themselves.

Vladimir Malinkovich:

I want to say that, indeed, theft and all -destroying corruption is one of the main reasons for our failures, but I associate it just with this Byzantine tradition, where arbitrariness, and not law, not the law. We did not have such a tradition to have a law. After the reforms of Alexander the Second, some hopes appeared that we would become a legal state, but they disappeared very quickly. And they always stole with us, remember, even at Karamzin: "What are they doing in Russia? And this theft is associated with the lack of such a phenomenon as legal awareness of our people, it is not today. This is a very important point associated with the Byzantine tradition of our country, with the autocracy and arbitrariness of the powerful person of anyone. But I would like to pay attention to the military-industrial complex, which, in my opinion, is a very important element of why we do not have reforms. We have a very large military -industrial complex, such a military -industrial complex was not in the countries of Eastern Europe - neither in Poland, nor in the Czech Republic, nor in Hungary. Although there is both shipbuilding and engineering - all this, indeed, is, but they still worked largely for the civil sector. And we all went to war and now no one needs it, no one needs a Nikolaev shipbuilding plant, which is being built and very expensive, no one needs tank factories, and all this is very energy -intensive, today it is all extremely disadvantageous. And what is still important: it was at these enterprises that the most qualified part of our population worked - both Ukrainian and Russian, especially Ukrainian. Nobody knows what to do with them, and since this is a very large percentage of the population, the purchasing power of the entire population is low, and the prospects for the development of light industry oriented to our market are, therefore, in fact,. This, it seems to me, is one of the most important points why, firstly, we are impossible for those radical reforms that were in the Czech Republic and in other European countries, along with the fact that there is civil society, but we do not have it. And, secondly, we have a shift in the direction of left-wing parties, since these qualified specialists who, in theory, should vote for reforms, today and tomorrow in the elections will vote for the Communists: they have been living very badly for many years.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Vladimir Dmitrievich. What you are talking about, I would group as objective factors. But, after all, there are factors that are in some ways for Russia, and for Ukraine, and for the former territory, say, the Soviet Union, and for Eastern European countries - this is the same corruption that you are talking about. After all, the parable in the tongue is corruption, which existed in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Corruption in the Czech Republic - it is depressing anyone, well, and the faint of heart terrifies. To say that there is no corruption in Poland, only a person who does not imagine this country at all. Baltic states? In the Baltic states, there are more than enough corruption. The Baltic states was just like the Eastern European countries, under Soviet pressure, in the Soviet economic and psychological sphere, equal, approximately, the number of decades. Nevertheless, in all these countries, the case somehow moved from the dead point. I put forward this thesis and will now transmit the line of George Vladimov: perhaps the problem is that in all those countries we are talking about as countries where it turns out, their troubles and their flaws correlate with their own shortcomings, and in Russia, in Ukraine, in the same Belarus, which Vladimir Malinkovich mentioned at the beginning of the program, all these troubles attribute to the malicious minds, some kind of demonic. manifestations of others, third forces?

Georgy Vladimov:

Here, Vladimir Dmitrievich flashed such a consideration that in some way the country's conquest somehow contributed to the softening of the tough regime. If we take Germany, probably, nevertheless, Germany was greatly helped by the fact that the external force that took, among other things, was such a function as eradicating Hitlerism. Still, the Nyurtberg process and then the processes that followed him, they came from the initiative of the allies, our allies, because the exposure, they were among the Germans themselves, but they somehow did not allow them to be a stigma in their own. These processes that were carried out on the initiative of the Allies, they served as a carpet for those 86 thousand processes that then went already, as they say, avalanche-like. You can imagine what these 86,000 are - it penetrated into the popular consciousness. Then, help followed according to the Marshall plan, the allies considered themselves as to help the country that they occupied, conquered themselves. All this contributed to the fact that the country, Germany was given a powerful impetus: on the one hand, the eradication of the previous regime, on the other hand - the establishment of a new one. None of this happened in Russia, the authorities fell into the hands of those people from the same party, which led the country to the collapse. It is necessary, as in a fairy tale about the Baron of Munchausen, to pull himself by the hair from the swamp. So I see in this such a reason that we can’t do much.

Efim Fishtein:

You know, corruption is a social phenomenon that is very difficult to measure, therefore they usually use the index of perception of corruption. Since there is no indicator, a pure indicator of corruption itself, they ask questions to businessmen: how do you perceive corruption in a particular country? And now, a paradox: on the scale of perception of corruption, say, Italy is 2-3 places below the Czech Republic, for Hungary, and behind Poland - a paradox. Nevertheless, no one will blame Italy of that this is a country that has not been completed with the task of transformation, this is a country - one of the leaders of the economic world. Therefore, not only that. It seems to me that it is more important that the lack of division of society according to the fundamental political guidelines. In Italy, despite the small party differences in the ways, say, the development of the country, there is still consent with respect to general political orientation. This is the country of the Western family. They also relate to their political orientation of the country of Central Europe, I think, and the Baltic states. That is, regardless of whether the Social-Democratic government or conservative comes to power, it changes some details, it can start some angles, and some, on the contrary, exacerbates, nevertheless, in general, the orientation remains the same. While in Russia, as Vladimir Malinkovich said, the question is cardinal: either the voices will be cast by liberal parties, or the voices will be cast by the Communists. That is, the phenomenon that many experts at one time called the discretion of the history of Russia, the breakdown of its relations of the internal, or, I would say, the policy of sharaha from the wall to the wall, one experiment is replaced by another social experiment, which is fraught with tragic consequences. After all, it is necessary to understand right away that if Germany after the war was involved in the world market, then Russia, the current Russia, and it is again under the power of the Communists, will, on the contrary, be extracted from the world market, is isolated from it, and here I do not see any ways of development.

Vladimir Malinkovich:

I would like to note that, in my opinion, we have the liberals of the Bolsheviks and the Communists we have the Bolsheviks - our choice is small. The liberals threw bombs in Chechnya from us, the liberals were shot by parliament, liberals dominate among corrupt officials. So this is not, in my opinion, an important question, but it is important that there is no civil society and therefore we have the same power - both anti -communist and communist - the same thing. And one more thing: the feeling that our country is not ready for reforms is in the West. But the West refers to the countries of Eastern Europe and us very differently. I would like to give an example that in Hungary per capita the West invested a thousand dollars, in Estonia - 400, and in Ukraine there are only 15. Not without reason - they do not trust us. But instead of maintaining precisely democratic trends, we are supported by any government that will hold Russia dangerous for Europe and, in general, will turn Ukraine as opposed to Russia. They turn a blind eye to the fact that we do not have freedom of print, to the fact that we suppress parliamentarism and so on and so on. It seems to me that the West, too, should have to reconsider its attitude to processes in the East, given the specifics of these countries.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Vladimir Dmitrievich. In conclusion, I want to note that it is not a West to live in Russia, not to the West to live in Ukraine. The West is a completely vague concept. This is not the West investing, it is invested by Western investors. And you made a reservation that there is reason not to invest in unstable economies. And from my point of view, what you said, just what I spoke about, these are accusations of others of my own sins, instead of talking about ourselves, first of all. The West is abroad, and the thing needs to be done at home by ourselves.